Not one but two DLC on the same day, as the swansong to the great Mimimi Games? That’s the definition of bittersweet. Shadow Gambit The Cursed Crew was already their greatest game and scored impeccably here at Finger Guns, but now we have new reasons to go back and sample it all over again – Yuki’s Wish and Zagan’s Ritual DLC packs.
Each DLC comes with one new character, one new island, and a handful of chunky missions in a story-rich new chapter. You will need to have the base game and to have progressed to at least Act 2 (basically after you have three crewmates already). At that point, you can access either DLC as part of the story, or start them at any time, or just do it all post-game like I did. Gameplay is unchanged from the main game, as are graphics, voices, controls, and sound. I’ll be sticking to talking about the new characters, abilities, islands, and stories and making a judgment on whether these are worthy additions to what is already a ten-out-of-ten game.
I’m going to handle each DLC pack separately so if you are looking to learn about Zagan’s Ritual follow the link.
Yuki’s Wish
To even tell you what the first of the DLC is called robs it of its surprise, but I think we’re beyond that now. Yuki’s Wish is the first of the two and if you’ve been a long-time fan of Mimimi Games as I have, you’ll recognise the name. Yes, Yuki from Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun, is the star of this DLC. She’s found herself a black pearl and gotten herself cursed, but it’s only gone and made her abilities all the more impressive and fun to use.
Yuki was the trap-setter in Shadow Tactics, and that’s not changed here. Her trap-based powers were one of the styles of play I lamented not having much of in the base crew, so it’s really nice to have her back and to see what death and a black pearl have given her. Instead of her signature pinpoint spike trap that you needed to collect, Yuki now has a tripwire trap that hurls a thousand magical daggers at an enemy that triggers it. It doesn’t need to be collected after so bonus there too. In fact, she barely needs to collect anything as her major cursed power is that those she dispatches turn into innocuous and unsuspicious logs that don’t trigger other Inquisition guards. No clearing of bodies can really grease the stealth wheels.
She has brought a pet along for the ride, Takuma’s tanuki, Kuma. Basically a distraction raccoon, Kuma can gain a guard’s attention with his cuteness and lure them away from important routes, or directly into the tripwire traps. One great combination of these skills is that Yuki can singlehandedly take down Kindred, those guards that have a resurrection link with another guard. The trick is to take them down at the same moment, which usually requires two pirates, but not if you have a tripwire in the right place doing half the work.
We don’t want too many spoilers for a seven or so hour DLC now, so I’m going to keep the synopsis brief. We come in part way through Yuki’s story. She’s already come up against her nemesis, Salazar, several times and made a name for herself, the Twilight Corsair, while pursuing a magical compass. The compass leads the way to a mystical Japanese dragon-themed island, and eventually to granting wishes. Suffice to say, you have six missions to complete, multiple visits to the new island, Dragon’s Dream, as well as to three old favourites collecting dragon statuettes, and it all comes together nicely.
Dragon’s Dream itself is a beautiful new island filled with giant writhing dragon statues, pagodas, gravel gardens and submerged villages – it’s all the cursed version of Shadow Tactics Blades of the Shogun I could ever want. It fits in beautifully with the rest of the game but has a wonderful Japanese flavour. I even appreciated being forced to visit it three or four times – just to see it in all its daylight, twilight and midnight glory.
Yuki’s Wish is a wonderful sidebar DLC to the main game, but certainly feels like its own thing, far more so than Zagan’s Ritual does. It’s a treat for long-time fans to get to use an older character again, with new cursed skills, hear the chime of her kills, and revel in a bit of nostalgia. Yuki’s abilities are excellent and quite strong, which meant I took her with me for the bulk of Zagan’s Ritual as well, just so I could keep tricking guards off their patrol routes, and never leave any trace of my kills. I wonder if this one would score as highly with those who for any reason didn’t get chance to play Shadow Tactics, but for me this was the stand-out favourite of the two DLC packs.
More Shadow Gambit is more than enough reason to dive back in, but with a substantial seven+ hours of content and a story that brings back a beloved character from Mimimi’s first Shadow game, now cursed with a black pearl, it was a delight from start to finish.
Shadow Gambit: Yuki’s Wish is available now on PC (review platform), PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.
Developer: Mimimi Games
Publisher: Mimimi Games
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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